Left ready to launch own version of Operation Chaos for Palin?

AllahpunditPosted at 7:08 pm on January 3, 2011

A fun idea, partly because it creates all sorts of strategic wrinkles, partly because it raises the possibility of a colossal backfire on Democrats in the general election, and partly because it may be the first and only thing that conservative Palin supporters and liberal Palin detractors can truly agree on. Both desperately want her to win the nomination. Perhaps … there is a way.

What these democrats prove is that Obama is not capable of winning on his own record.

If anything, Palin has effectively framed the debate on multiple issues, including Obamacare. Her “death panels” phrase has hit the right tone in getting the American public to focus on the negatives of this plan. Plus, her support among the GOP base is strong and growing. If Palin has an effective campaign and abolishes her competitors, these democrats might kick themselves for their efforts.

From what I’ve read, Ronald Reagan was heavily underestimated by the democrat party who never thought the American public would vote for a conservative who was a celebrity against a democrat president who they claim was superior in intelligence, Jimmy Carter. A landslide win for Reagan came about.

Here’s the website’s voting guide to open and closed primaries. I’ve always been skeptical of these efforts to wreak havoc on the other side by crossing over and voting in their primary — how many voters are that politically savvy and motivated? — but it’s such an article of faith among lefties that Palin would be cannon fodder for Obama that you might see a little grassroots groundswell for this idea come 2012. Of special note: South Carolina was an open primary in 2008. If that holds true again, with no competitive Democratic primary for liberals to care about, then … yeah, maybe the opportunity to help pick the GOP’s nominee will lure a significant number of progressives over to voting Republican.

The weirdest implication of all this is that, if the idea really got some momentum, it could confound the candidates’ wishes for open versus closed primaries. All things being equal, people like Palin and Huckabee want closed primaries to shut out centrist independents and maximize the impact of base voters; on the flip side, people like Romney and Daniels prefer an open primary for the opposite reason. If, however, there’s suddenly a real risk of Democrats crossing over in substantial numbers to support Palin, all of that changes. In that case, maybe Romney prefers to take his chances with centrists who are registered Republicans and hope that the base vote splits among enough “true conservatives” for him to win. The open vs. closed question actually came up at today’s RNC debate at around 90 seconds of the clip below (via Mediaite); I won’t spoil the surprise, but you can probably guess their preference. Tucker Carlson also asked them, point blank, whether they think Palin can win a general election. That comes at around 5:25; not much of a surprise there either.